


am / was / will be

by breathofthewild



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Angst, Body Dysphoria, Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathofthewild/pseuds/breathofthewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny curls around him like a snake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	am / was / will be

Seven years' absence leaves a gaping hole where a part of himself should be, and destiny curls around him like a snake.

He is a child in adult clothing, skin stretched too thin over heavy bones that don't fit his sense of spacial awareness. He is sharp elbows and too-long limbs and a long, awkward gait that keeps him off-balance. He is a center of gravity too high. He is a blade too sharp for a child's hands, a shield that he could once hide his entire body behind.

He outgrew the forest before his body did. The doorway to his house is too low for him now.

Seven years or seven days ago, he lost a father, a friend, the one person he thought would live forever. The Great Deku Tree was immortal and untouchable until suddenly he wasn't anymore. The quest was doomed from the start, Link realizes, and later he wants to laugh at the thought that fighting Queen Gohma was the biggest adventure he'd ever been on (but he travels forward seven years, back seven years, forward, back, and catches himself thinking _this time--this time, can't I have just a few more days?_ ).

(That's not how it works, though; it never is.)

He is a Kokiri. He is not a Kokiri. Before seven days ago (seven years ago) (or was it longer now?), he had never even been to the Lost Woods. Now, he faces the vast, storming desert, and he steps out into the sea of sand with nothing to guide him but his faith, courage, and an eyeglass that he found in a well.

When his best friend -- his sister -- the one he trusted more than anyone -- pressed an ocarina into his hands, he didn't say "thank you". He didn't even say "goodbye". He ran.

Link runs, and he doesn't look back.  
(He is always looking back. There's always something to look back towards.)

As an adult, the expectant looks he gets are terrifying -- as if he knows what he's doing, as if he isn't missing years that everyone else has. By the time he's a child again, he's come to expect them. He walks into Kakariko and is met with insouciance instead of expectation. He doesn't know whether to be relieved, or irritated, or something worse.

He's an adult, or he's a child, or he's neither or both or something in-between that he was never given the luxury of experiencing. The hands he looks down on are either too small or too large. He doesn't know which ones belong to him anymore.

He is a Kokiri--he is a Hylian--he is a hero who can't even save a soldier with one last word of guidance for him and a dying breath, a dark alley, a horrible stillness, he is he _is he **IS**_

(a Deku, a Goron, a Zora, all of those things and more. His skin doesn't belong to him anymore, it's borrowed and unfamiliar, but then he puts on the mask of the fierce deity and for the first time since he can remember, he feels--)

He is a hero, but he doesn't feel like one when he collapses from thirst at the steps of the Spirit Temple. He doesn't feel like one at the bottom of the well, when the dead-hand grabs him and he freezes up, doesn't even think to pull away until Navi chirps at him in a panic. He doesn't feel like one when he enters a burning Kakariko and ignores Sheik when they tell him to get back, because he's supposed to be the brave one, and if he isn't then who will be?

He doesn't feel brave.

He feels smaller than he ever has before.

Seven years pass. They pass, and they pass, and they pass, and each time he draws the Master Sword from its pedestal, he is a little more detached. A little less himself than he was before.

With the world on his shoulders, he presses on.

With expectations crawling on his back, he draws his bow.

With fate itself hanging heavy on his skin, with the approval of the goddesses on his left hand, with a well-traveled soul and a body that is no longer his own--

He climbs the tower, and he opens the door.

The world fractures.

(There is no happy ending waiting for him here; there is no glory on the other side. Only the winners write history.)


End file.
